question about piers and underpinnings (supports/posts) in crawl space

[Cosmic]

The mighty Code is always there, just some places do not enforce it. There may be Code enforcement at the county level, instead of the town level. You always got to know your own area.

In this one county I know this one guy that built his own house out in the woods, never told nobody, never got any paper, not even the tax man knows. Waiting to see how that one works out, he is probably going to move in fairly soon. I doubt any inspector boy could even find the place. Horay for American justice. I'm waiting to see how he fineses the septic system. He jist got his daddy on board, riding shotgun.

This one, I would just skinny back in there, pound in some more wood, make that puppy a full 6 x 6 solid and take another glossy photo. Tell the buyer all done. Just ensure all the wood is in nice and snug and the new stuff is actually bearing on the footing and taking load. Small sledge, pound to fit. Slide that dirt back in. You do want everything to be pressure treated. In contact with Earth, don't want them termite nasty's coming for breakfast.


Surprised your town has not figured out there is money to be made. Some smaller towns in my area the local cops are the building code in-force-ment / revenue generating officers, seems to be the same as writting traffic tickets. All how you play the game. There is money in them thar hills, down in the valley too. It is always pay the man.

Nothing like grabbing the bull by the horns, doing what comes natural. At worse what can happen? They make you take the wood back out????? This ain't even exciting stuff for most paper pushing folks. Just some other box to get checked. Another hand to be paid.

[TabbyCats]

The crawl is a small space (due to a good-sized basement for the rest of the foundation), so these supports aren't for the whole house. The majority of the load is born by the side concrete walls of the house/basement. Perhaps that's why the original builder skimped on it.

I was told a regular inspector probably wouldn't have picked up on this since they look normal from the crawl entrance. The inspector was sent by a Relocation company and they arrive with the attitude "I'm here to find out anything possibly wrong with your house so your company can offer you the least amount of money for your house that they can if it goes to a "company buyout" offer." That was scary to hear! He was here a full 3 hrs (total finished space of 3700 sf, 2-st w/ basement) and he didn't leave a stone unturned....but, he was simply doing his job. He explained how it works with being hired by a Relo company versus regular homebuyer etc.

No, there was nothing beforehand indicating this was a problem (floor above is fine).

I'm going to ask a few other people in the neighborhood who have some crawl space what their supports are made of (wood vs concrete). If there's no code, then they can't force us to use concrete as the remedy, I wouldn't think? We will at least make the support such that it is not considered "undersized".

Anyway, thanks so much for all your ideas and thoughts.